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From 6 cylinders to 755 hp, check out this quick Chevrolet Corvette history lesson

Donut Media takes us from the 6-cylinder 'Vette to the latest ZR1

February 2, 2018

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Before the Chevrolet Corvette was a staple of American performance and in the discussion of the world’s most capable road cars, it was a (relatively) lowly straight-six powered European-styled roadster without any real domestic competition.

Two years after the Corvette’s launch, Chevy introduced the venerable small block, and Ford launched its own two-seater, the Thunderbird. While Ford added a couple extra seats to the Thunderbird in 1958 to further its sales push, Chevy didn’t.

Instead, Chevy has built six other generations of a two-seat sports car. Along the way, the Corvette hit some bumps in the road (like in 1983, when the ‘Vette just didn’t see dealer lots) but also gave meaning to alphanumeric codes like Z06 and ZR1.